Victim, others give tips on how to prevent hackers from making you the next target

Friday

Jan 3, 2014 at 11:10 PM

Alyson McIntyre’s walmart.com account was hacked but the fraud department discovered it right away and they reimbursed her money. She and others offer tips to keep passwords safe.

BY Christina McCuneIndependent staff writer

Alyson McIntyre got hacked. For her, things turned out OK in the end, and she learned some valuable lessons.

In this digital age, millions of people with online accounts have been victims of data theft — which has proved costly to many.

McIntyre was lucky; she got her money back.

The hacker purchased two unlimited data calling plans worth nearly $500 through McIntyre’s walmart.com account last year. The thief also accessed her email account to obtain the calling plan numbers that he or she had just stolen.

The hacker attempted to be sneaky by also purchasing a package of baby onesies and an outfit that McIntyre previously had viewed online to make the two transactions appear to be from the Massillon resident. But the fraud department at Wal-Mart was on top of it. McIntyre was contacted immediately about the suspicious activity. Not only did the two large transactions — one after the other — raise a red flag, but McIntyre had just made a payment on her account in person at Walmart that same day.

“They caught it themselves so that was good,” she said. “I didn’t have to pay for it.”

McIntyre also received an email notifying her that her email password had just been changed.

“I was rather emotional,” she said, recalling when she found out about the theft. “I was really upset. It’s not like people have extra money lying around.”

McIntyre, 28, has a 9-year-old son, Quintyn, and at the time she was expecting her second son, T.J., who is now 6 months old.

Fortunately, the Walmart fraud department put the money back on her card that month.

“It was resolved so quickly,” she said.

Despite the intrusion of privacy and the brief $500 debt scare, Walmart told her she could keep the onesies and the outfit that had been mailed to her house. The onesies came in handy for her then-newborn, and the outfit happened to be for a little girl, so she donated it.

“I was very pleased with the fraud department,” she said. “They sent me some paperwork in the mail and I had to send it back to them. Within that month (the charge) was already off. I changed my password for everything.”

DATA THEFT

Last week, hackers collected the user names and phone numbers of some 4.6 million users of Snapchat, a disappearing-message service, according to The Associated Press.

And a few weeks ago, Target experienced a massive data security breach that affected about 40 million debit and credit card holders.

Target has said it is still in the early stages of investigating the breach and has been working with the Secret Service and the Department of Justice, according to The AP.

Debit-card PINs were among the financial information stolen from millions of customers who shopped at the retailer between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15, according to The AP. However, the stolen personal identification numbers, which customers type into keypads to make secure transactions, were encrypted, which reduces risk to customers.

Massillon Police Chief Keith Moser said that like any other crime it’s important that victims of cybercrimes and identity theft report the incident to their local police department. He said officers will investigate the crime and call other resources and agencies as needed, such as the FBI. He also recommends that the victim contact his or her bank or credit card account holder that was affected. If a store is involved, Moser advises folks to let the store know so that the security department there can investigate. He reminds computer users to make sure each of their accounts has a unique complex password.

PROTECT YOUR PASSWORDS

Since her accounts were hacked, McIntyre has changed her passwords and made sure they are unique for all of her accounts. As someone who’s been a victim of a hacker, she recommends getting the protection plan on a credit card. She also changed the way she shops. Instead of paying for an item online, she uses her online account to order an item, but pays for it directly in the store.

“I know things like that happen but when it happens to you, you think ‘how did they do that?’” she said. “It’s intriguing to me to find out how people can do that.”

According to researchers at IT security firm Trustwave, nearly two million passwords have been stolen via malware — or malicious software — attacks. Compromised data include login credentials for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yahoo and Google, according to a news release from Equifax, a consumer credit reporting agency.

In one case, a network of computers infected with malware harvested the passwords from computers without users’ knowledge. Computers can be infected in a number of ways. For example, a user may click on a link or download a file that infects their computer with malware. Once the malware is installed, it can see whatever is typed on the computer, including passwords to social networking and online banking accounts, the news release states.

In 2012, $4.9 billion was stolen from consumer banking accounts through malware takeovers, according to a 2013 report by Javelin Strategy & Research.

Jessica Watkins, reference services manager, and Kat Weckbacher, technology manager, both at the Massillon Public Library, put together some tips to help people protect their passwords.

It’s easy enough to remember not to tell anyone your password, but what’s an easy way to come up with a unique one?

Use a password that would be difficult to guess, Watkins advises, such as one with a capital letter and a number for added security. Don’t use simple passwords such as 1234, she said, and make up a password only you would know.

“Take a line from a poem you enjoy and use the first letter from each word,” Watkins said.

For example, one could use a line from Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Making the first letter of each word into a series of lowercase and uppercase letters, as well as throwing a number and symbol into the mix, the phrase “The woods are lovely, dark and deep” could turn into a password: “twa1D&d.”

Write down the poem or line if you think you’ll have trouble remembering.

“If you do write down your passwords, keep that list somewhere secure that no one would look for it,” Watkins said.

Opening a secondary email account may come in handy to retrieve or change a password from the primary email account, she said.

Also, when using a public computer, such as at the library, make sure to always log out of all online accounts at the end of the session; don’t simply close the browser. If someone uses the same computer, they could access your account if you didn’t log out, Watkins said.

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